Samuel Beckett tried to corral silence by making silence the domain of language. To not say anything, to ultimately embrace silence, would have meant an impossible task—setting down the pen, laying to rest the voice—and placing a moratorium on words.

   The only way Beckett imagined that could happen would have been through death. Death, flexing dominion, would have to pry the pen from Beckett’s cold stiff hand. Death would have to impose the silence and gag order that Beckett could not attain by choice.

   From out of smoldering and sepulchral silences words arise, only to immediately plunge back into the abyss. Gravity’s mouth, magnetic and godlike, is essentially a devourer of seasons. And words, trained through voice and causal urges, are always resisting gravity’s vortex just long enough to spell out hints, needs, cries for help, and homesickness disguised as small dark birds.

  We come out of silence only to return there. Lots of words and stories and jig-dancing at night’s edge in between.